tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842325772263389302018-03-06T01:35:26.181-08:00Mobius - as shallow as it getsFoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-45725964711890115882010-10-16T01:54:00.000-07:002010-11-17T03:09:33.978-08:00Dunny<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Re The Dunny Man. I doubt that I will ever manage to locate a roundtoit suitable to enable me to ever complete a book on The Dunny Man, so here are some of the thoughts I have cogitated on so far.<br/><br/><br/><br/><b>Dun-ny Makes the World Go Around, <br/>the world go around, <br/>the world go around...</b><br/><br/><br/><br/>Have you ever stopped to ponder why God has given nearly every life form he created an arsehole? Could it be that God has a Poo fetish?<br/><br/><br/><br/>You have probably heard of the Food Chain, where minor life forms are eaten by higher life forms etc. etc. But have you ever stopped to reflect on the fact that there is an equally important food chain that extends the other way, fixated on the nutritional value of Poo?. <br/>Chickens are near the top of this food chain, nearly everything likes a nutritious bit of chicken poo, dogs in particular, but then dogs are partial not only to chicken poo, but rabbit, and horse poo feature equally well. Behind the dog and their close companions, the humans, come the rats who just adore dog poo. Behind the rats and many other lower life forms in this food chain come the insects, laying their eggs in piles of low grade poo so their maggots may extract a lifes full of nutrition from it. Then behind them comes the worms and the bacteria, leaving a nutritious humic soup for the final level, the plants, to dine on which of course starts the whole food conventional 'food chain' off again. Dunny literally makes the living world go around, so that is perhaps why God gave most living things an arsehole - in order not to break the circle (it has been noted that some holy monks particularly celebrate the importance of this 'circularity'). Before leaving the topic of the inverted foodchain, we should not forget that procrophagia is so important to the cycle of life that God even decided to create a word for it..<br/><br/>There seems to be a fundamental truth - 'Where there is life, there is excrement'<br/><br/>So, moving on to the importance of Dunny and indeed The Dunny Man, to the human society. You may have heard the old phrase 'Where there's Muck, there's Brass' and perhaps the less popular one known to all Dunny Men, 'Where there's shit, there's tomatoes'. Both equally, true, but if you think back to the inverted food chain, it will perhaps come as no surprise to find out that for humans, poo is inversely proportional to status ( everyone knows that the Queen does not have vulgar orifices but that Phillip kept his arsehole for purposes of 'blowing orf').<br/><br/><br/><br/>In humans, status and social elevation almost certainly dated from the humorous activity of popping ones arse over the edge of the branch and seeing if you could poop on the unfortunates below you. Later generations were to adopt the more polite introduction of an aerial deposition by the calling of the term 'Guardiloo', followed by masses of giggling caused by the state of the poor unfortunates who were either deaf or even more hillarious were those who heard, but didn't quite catch the warning in time as they were invariably looking up at the moment of occulation. The importance of the descent of poo through the social strata to the structure of that strata is perhaps shown to greatest effect in India where a whole social caste have been created - The Untouchables - to be societies visible Dunny Men and to mark out the superiority of those arseholes sitting on higher social branches. Indeed, the action of being seen to shit on ones subordinates is seen in some cultures as an important measure of rank and status. Perhaps this was also reinforced by the perception that ones imaginary friend spent his day interfering with man's toils from his lofty seat in the clouds and that distancing oneself from the destination of poo was to travel in the direction of the deity. The perception might even have coined the phrase 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'. Indeed, such is the social stigma of things pooesque, that even those who may have made vast fortunes through their endeavours of shovelling shit are shunned by those who live at the top of the tree (but this might also have something to do with the smell and wart infested skin that can accompany the professions most ardent practitioners.<br/><br/><br/><br/>But God is more intelligent than men. He gave men arseholes so they should become part of the great circle of life. Sadly men can become fixated with things from their childhood and have a tendency not only to hang on to the need to chat frequently to their imaginary friend, but also to remain arseholes for the majority of their lives. However, some men do manage to grow up and understand the importance of the great circularity. While some can become (like the monks mentioned before) a little too literally fixated with the immediacy of the great circle, most will manage to become respectable stalwarts of the order of The Dunny Men.<br/><br/><br/><br/>When man lived in trees, or later when he took to hunter/gather life style on the savannah, the rich tapestry of life God had fashioned, took care of man's contribution to the great circle. But when man started to evolve the genes for hairdressers, traffic wardens, solicitors and estate agents, then they felt the need to congregate in masses. Huge inbred congregations of individuals carrying these genetic traits started to create the open cesspits of places such as Londinium. Nature has its way of deleting recessive genes, and left to perform its duties, nature would have cleansed humankind of these aborations quite efficiently. But it is in man's nature to protect his own and from the masses came Dunnymen of great ingenuity, driven by the sight of all that poo going to waste, they created a huge automated Dunny Collection Infrastructure (in its proper place of course - underground and out of sight) and along with it, a mega business for converting the cities waste into humus for the fields and 'fresh' drinking water to quench the thirst of the city along with rude amounts of wealth for their investors. Sadly, this protected the inbred genes which have proliferated to infect much of society today. Such is the way of great men with great ideals, there are always consequences that they (and we) will come to regret.<br/><br/><br/><br/>So has the role of The Dunny Man become fully institutionalised, the exclusive prerogative of major corporations? Thankfully, the answer is No. Nature and God continue to rail against the 'civilisation' of man and the role of The Dunnyman continues to be a part of many peoples lives. If you have a pet, you will be called upon to exercise the duties of The Dunnyman on a regular basis. A mother will know the frequency she will be required to implement her Dunnyman role. A gardener will know of the importance to his crops of a liberal application of the returning circle. Even Dunnyrobots collect poo from orbiting space 'goers' and ferry it to a fiery rendezvous with our outer atmosphere culminating in a fine sprinkling of 'Poodust' for all - back unto the earth that which is the earth's.<br/><br/><br/><br/>An interesting turn which is now starting to manifest itself within our present version of 'modern society' is the transition of the physical Dunnyman into the metaphysical domain (such is the importance God has granted to the full circle). Within 'industry' there tend to be two types of people - those who attract shit, the Dunnymen, AKA the doers, and those who are covered in Teflon and from whom shit radiates, yet to whom it never adheres. I give these latter types the appellation of Goate or Trim types (Teflon with and without a smarmy grin). For me a shining example of a modern day Dunnyman is a hero of mine called Jim Holman. Jim was so accomplished at accommodating the shit of modern industry, that he became attuned even to the development of probable sources and would intervene to circumvent its creation. The role of Dunnyman is even starting to become a part of the ultimate metaphysical domain - the world of the computer programme. Such is the complexity of these systems today they even have their own metaphysical garbage collection Dunnymen routines.<br/><br/><br/><br/>I seems that God truly has made shit ubiquitous.<br/></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-37621067863233187462010-05-27T01:44:00.000-07:002010-05-27T04:54:53.904-07:00The Bible is in Harmony with modern Science ?<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">An email from Mervin Sanders to myself, Mark Harrison and Mark Townsend on 26th May 2010<br /><br />This is one of the best examinations of JW claims that the bible and science are in agreement, that I have ever read.<br /><br />Thank you Merv.<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Hi Marks/Derek</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">We have a situation here which I personally find quite stimulating.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">1 The Marks accepting<br />and using biblical scripture which they take as being divinely inspired<br />and therefore 100% accurate and infallible</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">2 Derek rejecting biblical scripture as fairy tale and bunkum</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">3 Myself regarding the<br />bible (plus add-ons) as important historical evidence of a visitation<br />to our planet 6000 years ago, yet due to the technological restrictions<br />of both the writers and the translators, and due to the time between<br />oral tradition and the words being put on paper, a number of<br />inaccuracies have incurred. Plus censorship over the years.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;">If only God had the foresight to commit the whole lot to stone instead of just the 10 commandments!</span></strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">I have taken more time<br />to look at your bible science as this is more my field of expertise.<br />Although I commonly use the same translation of the bible as you for<br />everyday reading as I find it easier, I tend to go back to the original<br />Hebrew in these discussions rather than another's interpretation,<br />particularly the WTB&amp;TS. who let's face it, have been wrong on a<br />number of occasions.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">I fully recommend<br />Strong's Concordance which gives a list of potential alternative<br />meanings in the original language, if like me, despite being an avid<br />bible student, you have not had the time to learn the original bible<br />languages yourself. You can find it right here on the Net.</span></div><br /><div class="pad1010"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><strong>Astronomy:</strong></span><br /><br /><div class="e_indentA"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The Hebrews were devout students of the wonders of the starry firmanent (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Amo&amp;c=5&amp;v=8#8">Amo 5:8</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Psa&amp;c=19&amp;v=1#1">Psa 19</a>).<br />In the Book of Job, which is the oldest book of the Bible in all<br />probability, the constellations are distinguished and named. Mention is<br />made of the "morning star" (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rev&amp;c=2&amp;v=28#28">Rev 2:28</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Isa&amp;c=14&amp;v=12#12">Isa 14:12</a>), the "seven stars" and "Pleiades," "Orion," "Arcturus," the "Great Bear" (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Amo&amp;c=5&amp;v=8#8">Amo 5:8</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Job&amp;c=9&amp;v=9#9">Job 9:9</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Job&amp;c=38&amp;v=31#31">38:31</a>), "the crooked serpent," Draco (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Job&amp;c=26&amp;v=13#13">Job 26:13</a>), the Dioscuri, or Gemini, "Castor and Pollux" (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Act&amp;c=28&amp;v=11#11">Act 28:11</a>). The stars were called "the host of heaven" (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Isa&amp;c=40&amp;v=26#26">Isa 40:26</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jer&amp;c=33&amp;v=22#22">Jer 33:22</a>).</span></div><br /><div class="e_indentA"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The oldest divisions of time were mainly based on the observation of the<br />movements of the heavenly bodies, the "ordinances of heaven" (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gen&amp;c=1&amp;v=14#14">Gen 1:14-18</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Job&amp;c=38&amp;v=33#33">Job 38:33</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jer&amp;c=31&amp;v=35#35">Jer 31:35</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jer&amp;c=33&amp;v=25#25">33:25</a>).<br />Such observations led to the division of the year into months and the<br />mapping out of the appearances of the stars into twelve portions, which<br />received from the Greeks the name of the "zodiac." The word "Mazzaroth"<br />(<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Job&amp;c=38&amp;v=32#32">Job 38:32</a>)<br />means, as the margin notes, "the twelve signs" of the zodiac.<br />Astronomical observations were also necessary among the Jews in order<br />to the fixing of the proper time for sacred ceremonies, the "new<br />moons," the "passover," etc. Many allusions are found to the display of<br />God's wisdom and power as seen in the starry heavens (<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Psa&amp;c=8&amp;v=1#1">Psa 8</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Psa&amp;c=19&amp;v=1#1">19:1-6</a>; <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Isa&amp;c=51&amp;v=6#6">Isa 51:6</a>, etc.)</span></div><br /></div>Above is my defence of biblical astronomy, known also amongst other nations of the time, and<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">mostly gleaned from the times the Israelites spent in captivity in<br />Egypt and Babylon before the spoken word was committed to print. If<br />your version of the bible disagrees, look up the Hebrew/Greek<br />alternatives in Strong's and form your own opinion rather than what the<br />Society tells you to believe. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">To business ...</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>The Bible is in harmony with modern science.</strong></span></span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">A careful consideration of <i>all</i> of the evidence shows that the most questionable area is the interpretation of Biblical literalists.</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The Watchtower Society's<br />complete lack of comprehension of science, while pretending the<br />opposite, was one of the main things that clued me in as to their true<br />nature. This is a commentary on the Watchtower Society's 1989 book <i>The Bible: God's Word or Man's?</i>, Chapter 8: "Science: Has It Proved the Bible Wrong?"</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Chapter 8</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Science: Has It Proved the Bible Wrong?</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In 1613 the Italian<br />scientist Galileo published a work known as "Letters on Sunspots." In<br />it, he presented evidence that the earth rotates around the sun,</span></div><br /></blockquote>A minor point here which<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">shows the lack of familiarity of the WTB&amp;TS with science and its<br />terminology: in the parlance of astronomers "rotate" is used<br />exclusively to describe the motion of a body around its own axis, while<br />"revolve" refers to a body going around another body in an orbit. Thus,<br />the earth <i>revolves</i> around the sun, and it <i>rotates</i> on its own axis.</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">rather than the sun<br />around the earth. By so doing, he set in motion a series of events that<br />finally brought him before the Roman Catholic Inquisition under<br />"vehement suspicion of heresy." Eventually, he was forced to "recant."</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"> Why was the idea that<br />the earth moves around the sun viewed as heresy? Because Galileo's<br />accusers claimed that it was contrary to what the Bible says.</span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">That is exactly what the Society says about the arguments of people who disagree with it.</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Let us note that in the<br />same publication, the WTB&amp;TS later returns to this topic to attempt<br />to answer the charges of Galileo's accusers. It does so in its usual<br />fashion: by setting up strawmen and knocking them down.</span></div><br /><blockquote>It is widely held today<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">that the Bible is unscientific, and some point to Galileo's experiences<br />to prove it. But is this the case? When answering that question, we<br />have to remember that the Bible is a book of prophecy, history, prayer,<br />law, counsel, and knowledge about God. It does not claim to be a<br />scientific textbook. Nevertheless, when the Bible does touch on<br />scientific matters, what it says is completely accurate.</span></div><br /></blockquote>Not always. Consider,<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">for example, your quote what the Bible says about our planet, the<br />earth. In the book of Job, we read: "[God] is stretching out the north<br />over the empty place, hanging the earth upon nothing."</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Much could be said about<br />this, but let us simply note that the Greek philosopher Anaximander<br />(ca. 6th century B.C.E.) also thought that the earth was hung upon<br />nothing. He conceived of the earth as a cylinder, suspended on nothing<br />at the center of the sky, which was a hollow sphere surrounding the<br />earth. So the Bible's reference to the earth hanging on nothing is not<br />unique.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">We will also see that<br />every reference in the Bible to the shape of the earth indicates a<br />flat, circular form -- not a sphere. So if the Bible's reference to<br />God's "hanging the earth upon nothing" is literal, it is not far from<br />Anaximander's idea.</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">(Job 26:7) Compare this<br />with Isaiah's statement, when he says: "There is One who is dwelling<br />above the circle of the earth." (Isaiah 40:22) The picture conveyed of<br />a round earth 'hanging upon nothing' in "the empty place" reminds us<br />strongly of the photographs taken by astronauts of the sphere of the<br />earth floating in empty space.</span></div><br /></blockquote>This is among the worst<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">of the Society's arguments about how the Bible is consistent with<br />science. The Hebrew word translated "circle" hardly ever means anything<br />but "circle", and in the Bible means <i>only</i> circle. In the Hebrew it <i>never</i> means "sphere". See <strong>2329 </strong>of Strong's Concordance.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">When we look at <i>all</i><br />of the Biblical references to the shape of the earth, we find a<br />consistent picture: the earth is a flat, circular structure (like a<br />pizza pie) with the dome of the sky suspended above it like a tent.<br />What the Society has done here is to capitalize on the fact that the <i>English</i> word "round" equally describes a sphere and a circle.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Furthermore, the<br />Society's argument ignores the fact that many of the ancients knew<br />perfectly well that the earth is spherical. When it is convenient,<br />Watchtower writers will even acknowledge this. The December 22, 1977 <i>Awake!</i><br />(p. 17) acknowledged that the Greek scholar Pythagoras, of the 6th<br />century B.C.E., knew it. Many other Greek thinkers knew it as well,<br />including Anaxagoras (5th cent. B.C.E.), Aristotle and Aristarchus (4th<br />cent. B.C.E.), Eratosthenes (3rd cent. B.C.E.; he actually measured the<br />diameter of the earth to within 12% of the correct value), Hipparchus<br />(2nd cent. B.C.E.), and Ptolemy (2nd cent. C.E.). There is even<br />evidence that the ancient Sumerians, around 2000 B.C.E., knew that the<br />earth is spherical. So even if the Bible writers really had in mind the<br />true shape of the earth, the fact that other ancient peoples knew it<br />does not prove anything about the Bible's inspiration or lack thereof.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Now, what does the Bible <i>really</i><br />say about the shape of the earth? Nowhere does it say that it is<br />spherical. On the contrary, all of the references indicate, as I said<br />above, a flat, circular shape like a pizza pie. Let's see what a few<br />scriptures say, to get the general flavor.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In the <i>New World Translation</i> Daniel 4:10-11 relates Nebuchadnezzar's dream:</span></div><br /><blockquote>"'Now the visions of my<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">head upon my bed I happened to be beholding, and, look! a tree in the<br />midst of the earth, the height of which was immense. The tree grew up<br />and became strong, and its very height finally reached the heavens, and<br />it was visible to the extremity of the whole earth.'"</span></div><br /></blockquote>The word "midst" means<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">"middle" or "centre." Consistently, other Bible versions say "a tree in<br />the middle (or center) of the earth." This verse says that the tree was<br />visible to the extremity of the whole earth, and therefore paints a<br />picture of a flat, circular earth. The tree stood in its center and had<br />its top in the heavens so as to be visible from all over the earth.<br />This would be impossible on a spherical earth. But the picture is<br />completely consistent with the idea that God "is dwelling above the<br />circle of the earth".</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Daniel 4:10-11 describes<br />a vision given to Nebuchadnezzar by God, and the Society says it is a<br />major prophecy of the Bible. Why would God give a prophecy of such<br />importance by giving an incorrect picture of the shape of the earth? If<br />Daniel and his contemporaries had a mental picture of the earth as a<br />sphere, and the vision pictured the earth as a sphere, what part of the<br />earth could be called the center? How could a tree of any height be<br />visible to its extremities? If Daniel had a mental picture of the earth<br />as a sphere, and the vision pictured the earth as a flat circle with<br />the tree in its center, would not Daniel and his readers have been<br />confused? The logical conclusion is that Daniel's mental picture and<br />the vision were consistent, and therefore that the scripture suggests<br />the picture the Bible writers had of the shape of the earth. It<br />suggests a flat, circular area large enough to hold all the kingdoms<br />known to the Bible writers, with the heavens a hemispherical vault<br />nestled down over the earth, not unlike the picture in Greek mythology.<br />If one says that this scripture is just using picturesque language,<br />then equally well can it be argued that Isaiah 40:22 is too. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><i>The Interpreter's Bible</i> argues similarly:</span></div><br /><blockquote>.... the ancient Oriental conception of the world tree.... was commonly conceived of as being on the navel of the earth, and so <i>in the midst of the earth.</i><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In those days the earth was thought of as a disk, with the heavens as<br />an upturned bowl above it; thus the tree is pictured as growing in the<br />center of the land mass of this disk and extending upwards until its<br />top touched the vault of heaven, in which case, of course, it would be<br />visible from any point along the edge of the land mass. [Vol. 5, p.<br />410, Abingdon Press, New York, 1956]</span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The picture in Daniel is further strengthened by the account of the Devil's tempting Jesus. Matthew 4:8 says:</span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Again the Devil took him along to an unusually high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.</span><br /></blockquote>Again the picture is<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">that all the kingdoms of the world could be viewed from a sufficiently<br />high mountain, which is not possible on a spherical earth. If this was<br />not the intended picture, then why was it used? The Devil could have<br />showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world from anywhere at all.</span></div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><br />With this picture of a flat, circular earth in mind, note how Isaiah 40:22 makes complete sense:</span><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">There is One who is<br />dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as<br />grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine<br />gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell.</span></div><br /></blockquote>This scripture, and the<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">picture of a flat, circular earth with a roof over it, also make sense<br />as rendered in other Bible translations. This is typical:</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">God sits throned on the vaulted roof of the earth. (<i>The New English Bible</i>)</span><br /></blockquote>There is nothing in<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Isaiah 40:22 to conflict with the picture of a flat, circular earth.<br />Other scriptures give a similar picture. Job 22:14 says of God:</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">.... on the vault of heaven he walks about. (<i>New World Translation</i>)</span><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">.... he walketh in the circuit of heaven. (<i>King James</i>)</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">.... he prowls on the rim of the heavens. (<i>The Jerusalem Bible</i>)</span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Job 37:18 says the heavens are hard like a metal mirror:</span><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">With him can you beat out the skies hard like a molten mirror? (<i>New World Translation</i>)</span><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Can you beat out the vault of the skies, as he does, hard as a mirror of cast metal? (<i>The New English Bible</i>)</span></div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><br />Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a heavy metal mirror? (<i>King James</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><br />Will you.... Be with him to consolidate heavens strong as a metal mirror? (<i>The Bible in Living English</i>)</span><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Can you help him to spread the vault of heaven, Or temper that mirror of cast metal? (<i>The Jerusalem Bible</i>)</span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">As to viewing the vault of heaven as a thin metal sheet, Isaiah 34:4 mentions:</span><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">And the heavens must be rolled up, just like a book scroll. (<i>New World Translation</i>)</span><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">.... and the skies will curl back like a roll of paper. (<i>The Bible in Living English</i>)</span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><i>The Interpreter's Bible</i>, Vol. 5, says concerning the word pictures in Isaiah 40:22:</span><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The earth is conceived<br />as a dome. In Prov. 8:27 the circle (hu'gh) is the "vault over the face<br />of the abyss" (teh'om); in Job 22:14 Yahweh walks upon the vault of the<br />heavens.</span></div><br /></blockquote>Of course, the sky is<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">immaterial. What we perceive as a solid dome over our heads is simply<br />the scattering of blue light from white sunlight. Many other scriptures<br />refer to the earth in connection with a circle, and various<br />translations render the verses in such a way that a picture of a<br />circle, not a sphere, emerges. Many of these scriptures might be viewed<br />as using allegory or poetic license to make a point, not as a literal<br />statement of the shape of the earth or the composition of the heavenly<br />roof.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">But this is precisely the point about Isaiah 40:22. In fact, the scripture makes absolutely<br />no sense if interpreted completely literally and with the idea that<br />Isaiah had in mind a spherical earth: the idea that God is sitting<br />"above" the spherical earth means that he is out in space somewhere,<br />and is even sometimes directly <i>below</i> people on one side of the<br />earth, and sometimes off to the side. One can certainly interpret the<br />idea of "above" as allegorical, but that kills the claim that Isaiah's<br />words prove that he knew the earth is spherical.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The book of Job, in the<br />scriptures quoted above, obviously uses both figurative and literal<br />language; any conclusions showing which it is using in any particular<br />case are open to a great deal of argument and will be biased by the<br />prejudices of whoever is making the arguments. In other words, the<br />Bible cannot be used to prove anything about what its writers believed<br />about the shape of the earth.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In light of all the<br />scriptures that talk of a circular earth, heavens like a beaten metal<br />mirror that can be rolled up, and the lack of definitive context for<br />Isaiah 40:22 that shows that it refers to a sphere, one cannot claim<br />that the scripture says the earth is spherical. Therefore Isaiah 40:22<br />cannot be used to prove that Bible writers were divinely inspired.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The question as to what<br />Isaiah 40:22 really means illustrates the point that there can be more<br />than one interpretation of what a Bible writer is really saying.<br />Describing wisdom, Proverbs 8:27 in the <i>New World Translation</i> says:</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">when he prepared the heavens I was there; when he decreed a circle upon the face of the watery deep.</span></div><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><i>The Interpreter's Bible</i> comments (Vol. 4, p. 832):</span><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Vss. 27-31 describe<br />wisdom at the creation of the world. She saw God spread out the<br />firmament like a vault over the earth. She saw the mighty waters of the<br />deep hemmed in at God's command by the great land masses. She was by<br />God's side as he created the universe and the various forms of life<br />that were to inhabit it. <i>Compass</i> or <i>circle:</i> The term probably refers to the "vault" or solid expanse of the sky which, like a dome, rested on the deep....</span></div><br /></blockquote>In like manner, many<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">more of the Society's arguments about the inspiration of the Bible can<br />be shown to rest on a foundation of wishful thinking.</span></div><br /><blockquote>Consider, too, the earth's amazing water cycle. Here is how <i>Compton's Encyclopedia</i><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">describes what happens: "Water ... evaporates from the surface of the<br />oceans into the atmosphere ... Steadily moving air currents in the<br />earth's atmosphere carry the moist air inland. When the air cools, the<br />vapor condenses to form water droplets. These are seen most commonly as<br />clouds. Often the droplets come together to form raindrops. If the<br />atmosphere is cold enough, snowflakes form instead of raindrops. In<br />either case, water that has traveled from an ocean hundreds or even<br />thousands of miles away falls to the earth's surface. There it gathers<br />into streams or soaks into the ground and begins its journey back to<br />the sea."<small><sup>1</sup></small></span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This remarkable process, which makes life on dry land possible, was well<br />described about 3,000 years ago in simple, straightforward terms in the<br />Bible: "All streams run into the sea, yet the sea never overflows; back<br />to the place from which the streams ran they return to run again." --<br />Ecclesiastes 1:7, The New English Bible.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>The only thing in the quoted scripture that is not completely obvious is the idea that the waters <i>return</i><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">to the place from which they originally ran. But even this is not a<br />particularly surprising statement. I will leave it to you to figure out<br />why.</span></div><br /><blockquote><small><sup>5</sup></small>Perhaps<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">even more remarkable is the Bible's insight into the history of<br />mountains. Here is what a textbook on geology says: "From Pre-Cambrian<br />times down to the present, the perpetual process of building and<br />destroying mountains has continued.... Not only have mountains<br />originated from the bottom of vanished seas, but they have often been<br />submerged long after their formation, and then re-elevated."<sup><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></sup></span></span></div><br />Compare this with the poetic language of the psalmist: "With a watery deep just<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">like a garment you covered [the earth]. The waters were standing above<br />the very mountains. Mountains proceeded to ascend, valley plains<br />proceeded to descend -- to the place that you have founded for them."<br />-- Psalm 104:6, 8.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>Here we run into some fairly typical WTS failings: ascribing far more authority to a source<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">than it deserves, quoting out-of-date sources and claiming that the<br />extremely obvious poetic descriptions in some Bible passages are<br />somehow scientifically accurate.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><i>The Book of Popular Science</i><br />by Grolier is often quoted in WTB&amp;TS literature, and that was<br />published in 1967. A book whose title contains the words "popular<br />science" is by definition not a "geology textbook". Anyone who thinks<br />different is ignorant of science and of the publishing industry.<br />Obviously, the WTB&amp;TS try to bolster theircase by ascribing more<br />authority to this source than it deserves. Of course, this says nothing<br />about whether the quoted source is accurate.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">However, I next note the date of the source: 1967. In the 1960s the science of geology underwent<br />a revolution centered around the theory known as "plate tectonics". In<br />1967 the science of plate tectonics was still being hammered out by<br />various geologists in many forums including standard scientific<br />journals. The ultimate findings, which were published in the late 1960s<br />and 1970s, did not find themselves into <i>popular</i> works until<br />much later, many of which became available in the 1980s. Popular works<br />in 1967 still reflected the fact that scientists until then had little<br />idea of the origins of mountains and so on, and that for all anyone<br />knew, mountains and valleys rose and fell sporadically without any<br />rhyme or reason. The WTB&amp;TS quote reflects that ignorance very<br />nicely. For example, in 1967 the "popular" works on geology had no idea<br />how the Hawaiian Islands -- a gigantic volcanic chain extending from<br />the big island of Hawaii all the way to the Kamchatka Peninsula -- had<br />formed. But the geologists were working and eventually figured it all<br />out. References will be given on request. Naturally, the WTS and the<br />popular book it quoted knew nothing of these developments. One wonders<br />why the Society choses to quote an outdated book, when by 1989 plenty<br />of good works on plate tectonics were available.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Finally, you might consider the Bible's rather obvious idea that mountains ascend and<br />valleys descend, and that "waters" once covered them. Once again, if<br />you need an explanation as to why this is obvious, I will gladly<br />provide it.</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">"<span style="font-size:85%;">The very first verse of the Bible states: "In the beginning God created the<br />heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) Observations have led scientists<br />to theorize that the material universe did indeed have a beginning. It<br />has not existed for all time. Astronomer Robert Jastrow, an agnostic in<br />religious matters, wrote: "The details differ, but the essential<br />elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the<br />same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply<br />at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">True, many scientists, while believing that the universe had a beginning, do not accept the statement that "<i>God</i> created."</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Nevertheless, some now admit that it is difficult to ignore the evidence of some kind<br />of intelligence behind everything. Physics professor Freeman Dyson<br />comments: "The more I examine the universe and study the details of its<br />architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense<br />must have known that we were coming."</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><small><sup>8</sup></small>Dyson goes on to admit: "Being a scientist, trained in the habits of thought<br />and language of the twentieth century rather than the eighteenth, I do<br />not claim that the architecture of the universe proves the existence of<br />God. I claim only that the architecture of the universe is consistent<br />with the hypothesis that mind plays an essential role in its<br />functioning."</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> His comment certainly betrays the skeptical attitude of our time. But<br />putting that skepticism aside, one notes there is a remarkable harmony<br />between modern science and the Bible's statement that "in the beginning<br />God created the heavens and the earth." -- Genesis 1:1.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>Wow. So many words to describe so simple a concept: most scientists and the Bible agree that<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">there was a beginning to everything. Well, whoop-de-doo. Most ancient<br />cultures agree that everything began at some point. So what? Were those<br />ancient writings and legends inspired by the God of the Bible? Clearly<br />not. Why then, would anyone argue that a particular apparent legend --<br />the Biblical version of origins -- was any different?</span></div><br /><blockquote> If the Bible is so accurate in scientific fields, why did the Catholic Church<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">say that Galileo's teaching that the earth moved around the sun was<br />unscriptural? Because of the way authorised religion interprets certain<br />Bible verses.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>Here the Society slides onto extremely thin ice. Why did JW leaders once teach that doctors'<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">claims that vaccinations are beneficial to health were unscriptural?<br />Because of the way the Governing Body interpreted certain Bible verses.<br />Ditto for their teaching about organ transplants, and the idea that the<br />physical heart was the seat of emotions, and the claim that a person's<br />personality resided in the blood, and the claim that God kept his<br />throne on the star Alcyone in the Pleiades constellation, and the claim<br />that Christ had returned in 1874, and that "the saints" had been<br />resurrected in 1878.</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">A few more examples ....</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><small><sup>1</sup></small>One passage says: "The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises." (Ecclesiastes 1:5, <i>The Jerusalem Bible</i>)<br />According to the Church's argument, expressions such as "the sun rises"<br />and "the sun sets" meant that the sun, not the earth, is moving. But<br />even today we say that the sun rises and sets, and most of us <i>know</i> that it is the earth that moves, not the sun. When we use expressions like these, we are merely describing the <i>apparent</i> motion of the sun as it appears to a human observer. The Bible writer was doing exactly the same.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>This argument sounds awfully good to some people today, who know about space satellites and<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">trips to the moon. But in Galileo's day plenty of ignorant religionists<br />had only the words of the Bible to go on. Does the Bible not say that<br />God created the earth in six days, and that it is fixed on its<br />foundations, and that the sun rise and sets, and that God specifically<br />created each kind of animal? Which of these, among many other<br />statements, can be properly evaluated without the help of solid<br />science? The answer is: not many.</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><small><sup>14</sup></small> The other passage says: "You fixed the earth on its foundations, unshakeable for ever and ever." (Psalm 104:5, <i>The Jerusalem Bible</i>)<br />This was interpreted to mean that after its creation the earth could<br />never move. In fact, though, the verse stresses the permanence of the<br />earth, not its immobility. The earth will never be 'shaken' out of<br />existence, or destroyed, as other Bible verses confirm. (Psalm 37:29;<br />Ecclesiastes 1:4) This scripture, too, has nothing to do with the<br />relative motion of the earth and the sun. In Galileo's time, it was the<br />Church, not the Bible, that hindered free scientific discussion.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>Once again we find the Society liberally interpreting some Bible passages as figurative and<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">others as literal. Note that it's not so easy for a Biblical literalist<br />to deal with what Job 38:6 says about the earth:</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Into what have its socket pedestals been sunk down, or who laid its cornerstone?</span><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Is this passage dealing with the permanance of the earth? How can anyone know for certain?</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">When other passages are<br />examined in like manner it becomes obvious that the Society is willing<br />to interpret Bible passages literally or figuratively, based not on a<br />systematic method, but arbitrarily and based on its current<br />understanding of "science".</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><strong>Evolution and Creation</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">There is,<br />however, an area where many would say that modern science and the Bible<br />are hopelessly at odds. Most scientists believe the theory of<br />evolution, which teaches that all living things evolved from a simple<br />form of life that came into existence millions of years ago.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The Bible, on the other hand, teaches that each major group of living things was specially created</span><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Can both be correct?</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"> Genesis gives no time scale for the creative days, and it is quite possible that God<br />specially created many types of creatures one at a time, or created a<br />few types that gradually evolved into the many we see today as well as<br />the huge number of extinct forms in the fossil record, or that he even<br />created just one kind at the very beginning which evolved into every<br />living thing we see today. It is even possible that God simply created<br />the <i>conditions</i> under which life could arise more or less on its own. In all these cases God is still the ultimate creator and author of life. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The fossil record<br />certainly shows a long history of life, where many forms arose and went<br />extinct, only to be replaced by a whole new set of forms. Some of these<br />forms existed for hundreds of millions of years.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">It is interesting to note Mark H's notion that the bible teaches that animals only produce "their own kind"</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In Lake Victoria in Africa there is a population of fish called "cichlids", which is a<br />general category comprised of dozens of species. These species vary<br />greatly in physical form and habits. Some eat vegetation and some are<br />predators. One kind only eats the scales from other fish by taking a<br />bite out of the side of them. Another kind only eats the eyes of other<br />fish by lunging at them and biting the eye out. None of the various<br />forms interbreed. All apparently descended from a small ancestral<br />population that got isolated in Lake Victoria some 10,000 years ago<br />around the end of the last ice age. If that is not "descent with<br />modification" so as to produce new species, I don't know what is. No<br />one knows of any limits on such modification, especially given millions<br />of years instead of a few thousand.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Darwin and other early theorists based these ideas on the rather obvious physical sequence<br />from fish to reptile to mammal, and so forth. Of course, this is an<br />extreme oversimplification. In any case, the science of genetics has<br />nicely confirmed the apparent physical sequences in that the more<br />distantly two kinds of creatures appear to be related physically, or in<br />time, the more different they are genetically. This is shown by the<br />fact that the DNA of chimpanzees and humans is 99% identical. They are<br />obviously built quite similar physically, and fossil evidence indicates<br />a common ancestor on the order of 6 million years ago. Frogs are<br />another interesting case. There are thousands of species, and they<br />differ from one another physically and genetically far more than do<br />chimps and humans. They have also been around for some 300 million<br />years and have had far more time.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"> <span style="font-size:85%;">As a matter of fact, what Darwin <i>observed</i> on isolated islands was not out of harmony with the Bible, which allows for variation within a major living kind.</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Some cichlids evolved into herbivores and others into predators. How could that happen if "kinds" were absolutely immutable?</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Once again we find a gross oversimplication to the point of absurdity. That living things<br />have evolved, in the sense that the population of living things has<br />changed radically over time, has been proved as conclusively as any<br />historical science can possibly be. To reject that is to reject all of<br />science. Sure, plenty of scientists assert that there is no God and<br />that life arose entirely on its own (and this cannot be proved in any<br />sense) but these two concepts -- the descent of life and the origin of<br />life -- are independent concepts. Watchtower writers depend on their<br />readers' ignorance to get away with this sort of "reasoning".</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">We, however, need to know whether evolution has been proved to such an extent that the Bible must be wrong.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Once again we see that black and white thinking.</span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Is It Proved?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">How can the theory of evolution be tested?</span></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />The most obvious way is to examine the fossil record to see if a gradual change from one kind to another really happened.</span></span><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">This is an extremely common argument that has been popularized largely by the young-earth<br />creationists. Darwin proposed that the evolution of life had to be<br />extremely gradual. However, paleontologists have unearthed plenty of<br />evidence that life evolved at an extreme variety of paces, from hardly<br />any change at all over millions of years to the extremely rapid pace<br />seen in the Lake Victoria cichlids. The fossil record is so sketchy<br />that finding a record of extremely rapid evolution is unlikely;<br />nevertheless such records have been found.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">For example, it was long<br />proposed that some reptiles evolved into mammals. Well of course the<br />real story is rather more complicated, and I certainly will barely<br />scratch the surface here by giving one example of change that is<br />documented in the fossil record.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Early forms of reptiles<br />had a jaw that consisted of four bones. They also had one earbone. Over<br />a period of some 100 million years new animals appeared that had more<br />and more of the characteristics of mammals, which have one jawbone and<br />three earbones. Amazingly, two of the reptile jaw bones apparently<br />migrated into the head and became earbones in various types of animals<br />during this time, and another bone disappeared. Not possible, you say?<br />Well, kangaroos, bandicoots and hedgehogs undergo a similar sort of<br />bone migration during their embryological development. There have even<br />been fossil animals discovered that have <i>two</i> hinged jaw systems<br />functioning side by side, one something like the old style and the<br />other something like the new. For details on this see:</span></div><br /><ul><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><li><br /><div>Ashley Montagu, ed., <i>Science and Creationism,</i> p. 247, Oxford University Press, New York, 1984.</div></li><br /><li><br /><br /><div>D. R. Selkirk and F. J. Burrows, editors, <i>Confronting Creationism: Defending Darwin,</i> pp. 82-92, New South Wales University Press, Kensington NSW Australia, 1988.</div></li><br /><li><br /><br /><div>James A. Hopson, "The Mammal-like Reptiles: A Study of Transitional Fossils," <i>The American Biology Teacher,</i> vol. 49, no. 1, p. 25, January, 1987.</div><br /></li></span></ul><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Next note what a well known scientist had to say about details of the evolution from reptiles to mammals (G. Ledyard Stebbins, <i>Processes of Organic Evolution,</i><br />pp. 142-148, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971).<br />He spoke about what he called transitional forms between, and the<br />origin of, various categories of animals:</span></div><br /><blockquote>If categories become well defined because forms intermediate between them become extinct,<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">then in the history of groups having a good fossil record we should be<br />able to find periods when categories which are now well defined were<br />connected by transitional forms. If we analyze the fossil record of<br />vertebrates, this is exactly what we see. Among modern animals, the dog<br />and bear families are regarded as definitely related to each other, but<br />even when all contemporary members of the two families are considered,<br />nobody has any difficulty in distinguishing bears from dogs, foxes, and<br />coyotes. In the Miocene and early Pliocene epochs, however, the<br />situation was different. At that time, animals intermediate between<br />dogs and bears were common, so that paleontologists have great<br />difficulty in deciding just when the dog and bear families became<br />distinct from each other...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Going farther back in<br />the fossil record, we learn that in the latter part of the Eocene<br />epoch, primitive animals which are now clearly recognized as<br />forerunners of the principle families of carnivores: dogs, cats,<br />weasels, civets, and their relatives, were linked together by a complex<br />network of resemblances...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">There are... many differences between modern reptiles and amphibia in the structure of<br />their skeletons, and these have been used by paleontologists for<br />recognizing the first reptiles to appear. An eminent paleontologist, A.<br />S. Romer, remarks of these animals: "Primitive Paleozoic reptiles and<br />some of the earliest amphibians were so similar in their skeletons that<br />it is almost impossible to tell when we have crossed the boundary<br />between the two classes."...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In respect to the early evolution of mammals, the same situation exists. The distinctive<br />characteristics of modern mammals; warm blood, hair, and the ability to<br />suckle their young, cannot be determined in fossils. In respect to<br />their skeletons, however, modern reptiles are, and the dinosaurs were,<br />very different from modern mammals. On the other hand, the animals<br />which dominated the land in the later Permian and early Triassic<br />Periods, before the dinosaurs appeared, were the mammal-like reptiles<br />or therapsids, which in both their skulls and teeth were almost halfway<br />between typical reptiles and primitive mammals...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">During the Triassic Period, the therapsids gave rise to several groups of rather small,<br />light-boned and active reptiles, which because of their specialized<br />teeth were known as the "dog tooths" (cynodonts)... These animals<br />existed for more than twenty million years during the latter half of<br />the Triassic Period. Their skeletons were mammal-like in most respects,<br />except that they had not yet acquired the three mammalian ear bones...<br />the counterparts of two of them (quadrate and articular) were still<br />part of the lower jaw... Recently discovered skulls indicate that the<br />shift from jaw to ear bones took place gradually. Commenting on this<br />situation, an eminent paleontologist, E. H. Colbert, remarks: "All of<br />which indicates how academic is the question of where the reptiles<br />leave off and the mammals begin."...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The first true mammals appeared in the late Triassic Period, about the time when the cynodonts<br />were becoming extinct. The age of dinosaurs began later, during the<br />Jurassic Period. During the entire period when the earth was dominated<br />by these reptilian giants, small active mammals existed side by side<br />with dinosaurs.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">These facts tell us that the transition from reptiles to mammals was very gradual, taking place<br />over a period of approximately 100 million years. It took place<br />simultaneously with the beginning of the major adaptive radiation of<br />the reptiles themselves. Mammals are simply a further extension,<br />through directional evolution, of one particular radiant line of<br />reptiles.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The transition from reptiles to birds is more poorly documented than are the other<br />transitions between classes of vertebrates. Nevertheless, many of the<br />smaller reptiles in the group ancestral to dinosaurs and crocodiles had<br />light skeletons from which those of birds could have arisen, and<br />moreover walked exclusively on their hind legs, as do birds.<br />Furthermore, the earliest fossil birds, from Jurassic deposits of<br />Germany, had jaws containing teeth and forelimbs with well developed<br />fingers... We classify them as birds because feathers are preserved<br />with their skeletons; but if their preservation had been somewhat<br />poorer and the feathers were not present, these animals might well have<br />been classified as reptiles.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Thus the fossil record of vertebrates strongly suggests that the characteristics which<br />distinguish the modern higher categories appeared first as distinctive<br />features of certain species or genera. They became characteristics of<br />families, orders, and classes only after descendants of the animals<br />which first possessed them developed them further, radiated into<br />numerous adaptive niches, and became separated from other groups by<br />extinction of intermediate forms. In other groups of organisms such as<br />insects and higher plants, in which the fossil record is far more<br />fragmentary, profound gaps exist between many orders, suborders, and<br />classes. Furthermore, no transitional forms are known between any of<br />the major phyla of animals or plants. In view of the incompleteness and<br />biased nature of the fossil record in all of these groups, and the<br />extremely long time, measured in hundreds of millions of years, since<br />the various phyla of organisms evolved, the large gaps which exist<br />between many major categories of organisms aside from the vertebrates<br />are most reasonably ascribed to known imperfections in the fossil<br />record...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">A further point must be emphasized in connection with the evolution of families, orders, and<br />classes. This is its "mosaic" character. As pointed out in connection<br />with both the evolution of amphibia from fishes and of mammals from<br />reptiles, the various characteristics which now distinguish the more<br />evolved class probably evolved separately, some relatively early,<br />others much later, at periods of evolutionary time which in some<br />instances were separated from each other by millions of years...</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Consequently, we cannot speak of any single "step" in the evolution of mammals from reptiles.<br />In some instances, such as the change in position of the jaw bones to<br />the ear, a relatively small number of genetic changes may have<br />triggered off the evolution and establishment of a new adaptive complex<br />with respect to that particular character... These changes would<br />however, have occurred at the level of subspecies or closely related<br />species. A contemporary taxonomist, transported to the Mesozoic era and<br />not knowing anything about the evolutionary future, would probably have<br />classified the first population bearing all three bones; hammer, anvil<br />and stirrup, in its middle ear, as an aberrant species belonging to the<br />then widespread group of therapsid reptiles. As stated above, this<br />group probably already possessed a mixture of characters which we now<br />associate on the one hand with reptiles and on the other with mammals.</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><hr style="width: 15%; height: 1px;"><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">So obvious is this lack<br />of evidence in the fossil record that evolutionists have come up with<br />alternatives to Darwin's theory of gradual change.</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Another gross distortion typical of the Society's <i>Creation</i><br />book. The reference is to the theory called Punctuated Equilibrium that<br />paleontologist Stephen Gould and his colleagues have promoted. This<br />idea acknowledges that most of the time evolutionary change is slow or<br />non-existent, and proposes that under unusual circumstances evolution<br />can proceed at an extremely rapid pace. Because most of the changes<br />will not appear in the fossil record, since the chance of an animal<br />becoming a fossil is slight, the fossil record appears like a series of<br />still photographs taken from a football game at 30 second intervals --<br />most of the action is missing but the overall flow can be inferred from<br />the results.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">As the references given above show, there is plenty of fossil evidence for both gradual and<br />"punctuated" evolution. Darwin naturally proposed an incomplete theory,<br />which has been modified in light of later developments. No surprise,<br />since that is the way science works. Science is not a static body of<br />knowledge given by God, but is a dynamic body of knowledge always<br />subject to modification if and when new discoveries clarify ideas or<br />even cause old ones to be discarded. Some things, of course, are so<br />solidly established that it is extremely unlikely that they will ever<br />be discarded.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">What the <i>WTB&amp;TS </i>does, in effect, is to argue that since Darwin's ideas have been modified,<br />the entire theory of evolution -- what existed in 1859 and what exists<br />today -- along with all of the evidence for the various aspects of the<br />various sub-theories -- should be discarded. THey do this by using the<br />fuzzy idea that since Darwin's idea of <i>exclusively gradual</i> evolution has had to be modified to account for the appearance in the fossil record of <i>extremely rapid </i>evolution, Darwin's idea should be discarded along with the more modern<br />ones. The fallacy of the WTb&amp;TS argument should be obvious to all<br />readers.</span></div><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The truth is, though,<br />that the sudden appearance of animal kinds in the fossil record<br />supports special creation much more than it does evolution.</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">A matter of opinion. The degree to which either is supported is a matter of spirited debate.</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">Living creatures are programmed to reproduce themselves exactly rather than evolve into something else. </span><i>Of course</i><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">living creatures contain genetic material to reproduce themselves<br />exactly. But they are not 100% accurate. That's why mutations arise.</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">There are also built-in constraints. Plants reach a certain size and refuse to grow any larger.<br />Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any<br />circumstances yet devised.<span style="font-size:85%;">Mutations induced by scientists in fruit flies over many decades failed to force these to evolve into something else.</span></span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">True, but nature itself has provided many examples of things evolving into something else. The<br />exact mechanism may be in question but the fact of the evolution is not.</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><strong>The Origin of Life</strong></span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Another thorny question that evolutionists have failed to answer is: What was the origin of life?</span></span></div><br /></blockquote>Once again we note the lumping of "descent with modification" -- which the fossil record<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">strongly indicates -- with ideas on origins, which are admittedly<br />fuzzy. This sort of lumping allows poor thinkers to think that<br />everything they lump together may be of equal quality, which is a gross<br />fallacy. <strong>Some scienitists with a similar mindset would lump everything in the bible as bunkum.</strong></span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">How did the first simple form of life -- from which we are all supposed to have descended -- come into existence?</span><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">No one disputes that this is an unanswered question.</span></div><br /><blockquote>Centuries ago, this would not have appeared to be a problem. Most people then thought that<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">flies could develop from decaying meat and that a pile of old rags<br />could spontaneously produce mice. But, more than a hundred years ago,<br />the French chemist Louis Pasteur clearly demonstrated that life can<br />come only from preexisting life.</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Another fallacy. Pasteur demonstrated that <i>today</i> and <i>in a short time span</i><br />life does not appear spontaneously. He demonstrated nothing about<br />conditions that may have existed a long time ago, nor about whether<br />life can spontaneously generate under the right conditions.</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">So how do evolutionists explain the source of life?</span></span><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Most don't. They accept<br />that life, once it appeared by whatever means, evolved by some<br />mechanism to what it is today. Those mechanisms are what concern 99% of<br />life scientists today. The few who concern themselves with a purely<br />non-supernatural theory of origins subscribe to what the <em>WTB&amp;TS </em>writer describes:</span></div><br /><blockquote>According to the most popular theory, a chance combination of chemicals and energy sparked a<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">spontaneous generation of life millions of years ago. What about the<br />principle that Pasteur proved?</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Note again the wrong notion about what Pasteur showed.</span></div><br /><blockquote><i>The World Book Encyclopedia</i><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">explains: "Pasteur showed that life cannot arise spontaneously under<br />the chemical and physical conditions present on the earth today.<br />Billions of years ago, however, the chemical and physical conditions on<br />the earth were far different"!</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The Bible's explanation, that 'life came from life' in that life was created by God, is convincingly in harmony with the facts.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"> However, the "evolutionary" explanation is also in harmony with the facts. What's a truthseeker to do?</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><strong>Why Not Creation</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Despite<br />the problems inherent in the theory of evolution, belief in creation is<br />viewed today as unscientific, even eccentric. Why is this? </span></span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The drive to separate religion from science and everything else is strong and<br />understandable. When religion invokes the idea of God as the ultimate<br />source, and then baulks at the question of what is the origin of God,<br />it is evident that religionists have no ultimate answers to the<br />question of origins any more than anyone else does.</span></blockquote><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"> No scientist, in contrast with dogmatists like JW Governing Body members, is likely to state with 100% confidence that <i>anything </i>has occurred in the past. But this is not a problem because, in<br />contrast with certain religious leaders, scientists do not claim to<br />speak for God, or go from door to door to convince others to change<br />their lifestyles to match theirs because they have the Truth!</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The truth is that the theory of evolution, despite its popularity, is full of gaps and<br />problems. It gives no good reason to reject the Bible's account of the<br />origin of life. The first chapter of Genesis provides a completely<br />reasonable account of how these "unrepeatable" "unique events" came<br />about during creative 'days' that stretched through millenniums of time.</span></div><br /></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">In the same way, the Catholic Church justified its stance with respect to Galileo.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><strong>Dinosaurs extinct because of the Flood</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">This is a common myth propagated by pseudoscientists and general crackpots. It dates to the<br />late 19th century and was largely instigated by one Henry Howorth, a<br />fringe geologist who could think of no other interpretation for the<br />finding of frozen large animals in the Arctic than a huge catastrophe.<br />Unfortunately, Howorth and others badly misinterpreted the evidence and<br />thought that events that have since been shown to have occurred over<br />perhaps 30,000 years were instantaneous. The extinctions mentioned took<br />at least 8,000 years. For example, a dwarf species of mammoth still<br />lived on certain Mediterranean islands as recently as 4,000 years ago,<br />while its cousin the Siberian Mammoth died out some 6,000 years earlier.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">There is, in fact, no evidence whatsoever that at some single point in time large numbers of<br />large mammals became extinct, and that there was a simultaneous sudden<br />change in climate. There certainly was a change in climate from about<br />18,000 through 10,000 years ago, during which many animals became<br />extinct, but it was a <i>warming</i> trend that signaled the end of the last ice age.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">There is absolutely no evidence for the Society's claim that "tens of thousands of mammoths<br />were killed" simultaneously and then "quick-frozen in Siberia". Once<br />again this is due to the horrible misinterpretations of Howorth and a<br />few others. A number of large mammals have been found that upon careful<br />analysis proved to have died of quite natural causes and were gradually<br />frozen, and which partially decomposed before they froze. A look at the<br />reports from the intrepid Russian scientists who took two years to<br />recover acarcass shows that the carcass was badly decomposed deep<br />inside. The outer portions were frozen and preserved well enough that<br />sled dogs ate some of the meat, but the men who dug it out realized<br />that the flesh was already in bad shape when it was frozen. One of the<br />more enlightening aspects of their report concerned the unbearable<br />stench from the carcass, which even permeated the frozen ground around<br />it, which proves that the carcass was decomposed during the freezing<br />process.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Perhaps the best disproof of the notion of "huge numbers of quick-frozen animals" is the<br />1979 discovery of a partial frozen bison carcass in Alaska. This was<br />dubbed "Blue Babe" because of the blue mineral crystals that had<br />accumulated on the hide during the more than 30,000 years it remained<br />in the Alaskan permafrost. It turned out that the bison, a form now<br />extinct, had been killed and mostly eaten by lions. That lions had done<br />the deed was found from a piece of lion tooth that had broken off and<br />become lodged in the frozen flesh of the forequarters. The lions ate<br />most of the body, leaving the skin and much of the forequarters. The<br />head was virtually intact. There is no way such a thing could have<br />happened during the cataclysmic events of a Flood</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">. In a nutshell, ice ages have come and gone roughly every 100,000 years for about the last three million years.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">At any rate, in the 1920s and 1930s, archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered in<br />Mesopotamia the remains of a great flood. Unfortunately for biblical<br />literalists, it proved to be local to the region. Very likely it was<br />this, or a similar large but local flood in the vicinity of the Tigris<br />and Euphrates rivers, that gave rise to the legend that spread around<br />the world.</span></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">This argument about the widespread idea of an ancient Flood is actually by far the<br />strongest that the Society has. But it is far from conclusive, and it<br />certainly doesn't prove it as a fact.</span></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">The two best documented ancient cultures -- the Egyptians and the Chinese -- have records going<br />back more than 5,000 years and yet these records show nothing of a<br />Flood. This completely contradicts the WTB&amp;TS chronology that<br />places a global Flood in 2370 B.C.E., about 4,400 years ago. However,<br />there is much evidence that the Mesopotamian Valley, the region where<br />the biblical Elohim resided during this period, suffered a major flood.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Enuff for now</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Regards </span></div><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;">Merv</span></div><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"> </span></div><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><br /></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-73793988114122810782010-05-27T01:22:00.000-07:002010-05-27T05:03:34.112-07:00FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-83862412412047878942010-01-11T00:30:00.000-08:002010-01-11T00:35:23.888-08:00Pieces of String too Short to Save<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><font size='2' face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'>An old woman had died. Her son was given the unenviable task of executor of her estate. Unfortunately for him, his mother was an old-school packrat, saving anything and everything that might have use in the far-off future. Stacks of yellowed newspaper towered throughout the house, cardboard boxes that had been eaten by silverfish lay in dusty piles against every wall. The closets burst with clothing, more boxes, mouldering books, and receipts from fifty years ago. It seemed an insurmountable task, but the son persevered. </font></p> <p><font size='2' face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'>While cleaning out the kitchen pantry full of expired food and home remedies, the son came upon a shoebox with a yellowed strip of masking tape stuck on the lid. In spidery handwriting, he read, <i>Pieces of String too Short to Save.</i> And yes, the box was full of pieces of string, some of them less than an inch long.</font></p><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=3ccf0ec8-84e5-8327-b8fb-1bf5ed3f2efb' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-51988481649500388232009-12-10T07:34:00.000-08:002009-12-10T07:38:13.569-08:00The Inkanyezi Principle<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><b>The Inkanyezi Principle - 'Why use one complex knot when two simple knots can do the job better'</b><br/><br/><br/><br/><b>Article from Knotting Matters Issue No. 1 Autumn 1982<br/><br/>AMBITIOUS JIMMY HICKS, by John Masefield (1878 - 1967)</b><br/><br/>".....I made a spring, slipped, steadied myself, cast the painter around the mooring hook, and made the boat fast. "A round turn and two half hitches," I murmured, as I passed the turns, "and a third half hitch for luck." "Come off with your third half hitch," said one of the sailors. "You and your three half hitches. You're like Jimmy Hicks, the come-day go-day. You want to do too much you do. You'd go dry the keel with a towel, wouldn't you, rather than take a caulk? Come off with your third half hitch."<br/><br/>"Well, of all the red-headed ambitious fellies I think Jimmy Hicks was the worst .... ,He wasn't never happy unless he was putting whipping on ropes' ends, or pointing the top-gallant and royal braces.....Always doing something..... Always doing more than his piece.....If he was told to whip a rope, he pointed it and gave it a rub of slush and Flemish-coiled it.....You want to be warned by him.....You hear the terrible end he come to.....So as they was coming home they got caught in a cyclone off the Mauritius.....So it was all hands to the pumps.....By and by the pumps choked..... "Lively there," says the mate, "Up there one of you with a block. Out to the mainyard arm and rig a tackle. Lively now....She's settling under us." So Jimmy Hicks seizes a tackle and they hook it onto the longboat, and Jimmy nips into the rigging with one of the blocks in his hand. And they clear it away to him as he goes. And she was settling like a stone all the<br/>time. "Look slippy there, your" cries the mate, as Jimmy lays out on the yard. For the sea was crawling across the deck. It was time to be gone out of that."<br/><br/>"And Jimmy gets to the yard-arm, and he takes a round turn with his lashing, and he makes a half hitch, and he makes a second half hitch. "Yard arm, there!" hails the mate. "May we hoist away?" "Hold on," says Jimmy, "till I make her fast," he says. And just as he makes his third half hitch and yells to them to sway away - ker-woosh! there comes a great green sea. And down they all go.....All the whole lot of them. And all because he would wait to take the third half hitch. So<br/>you be warned by Jimmy Hicks, my son. And don't you be neither redheaded nor ambitious."<br/><b><br/>(MORAL: Always use the simplest knot that will do the job. Ed.)<br/></b><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=57be1864-8f43-8154-b7b8-878609924a2b' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-54771790884461713332009-10-19T14:49:00.000-07:002009-10-19T14:51:04.208-07:00Beauty of Math<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p align='center'><strong>Beauty of Math !</strong></p><p align='center'> </p><div align='center'><br/>1 x 8 + 1 = 9<br/>12 x 8 + 2 = 98<br/>123 x 8 + 3 = 987<br/>1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876 <br/>12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765<br/>123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654<br/>1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543<br/>12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432 <br/>123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321<br/><br/>1 x 9 + 2 = 11<br/>12 x 9 + 3 = 111 <br/>123 x 9 + 4 = 1111<br/>1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111<br/>12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111<br/>123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111<br/>1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111<br/>12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111<br/>123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111 <br/><br/>9 x 9 + 7 = 88<br/>98 x 9 + 6 = 888<br/>987 x 9 + 5 = 8888<br/>9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888<br/>98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888<br/>987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888<br/>9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888 <br/>98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888<br/><br/><strong>Brilliant, isn't it? </strong><br/><br/><strong>And look at this symmetry:</strong><br/><br/>1 x 1 = 1<br/>11 x 11 = 121<br/>111 x 111 = 12321<br/>1111 x 1111 = 1234321 <br/>11111 x 11111 = 123454321<br/>111111 x 111111 = 12345654321 <br/>1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321<br/>11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321<br/>111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321</div><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=a7501ddd-148d-89f3-9a81-55fcae80c2f3' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-89507611574640306822009-09-15T11:18:00.000-07:002010-11-17T03:22:49.967-08:00Time<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><br/>Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,<br/>Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,<br/>To the last syllable of recorded time;<br/>And all our yesterdays have lighted fools<br/>The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!<br/>Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,<br/>That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,<br/>And then is heard no more. It is a tale<br/>Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,<br/>Signifying nothing.<br/> <cite><a href='http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text/act-v-scene-v#mac-5-5-21'>Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28</a><br/><br/>But imagine a world without tomorrow, a world tidally locked to its sun (much as our moon is to earth) with one face perpetually in light and the other the void of night. What sort of life would evolve on such a planet devoid of a regular reminder of time.<br/><br/>No days, no night, no seasons. No sleep, for in a world of forever light, sleep would bring the certainty of rapid predation, but then, on such a world what would be the value of sleep? Would it ever have evolved?<br/><br/>Moments would pass unmarked - birth, growth, eat, procreate, die. Just a continuum.<br/><br/>On such a world, would intelligent life ever conceive of time? No stars, moon, seasons, day and night to tell us that anything exists beyond the here and nothing to indicate the presence of time itself except perhaps the momentary fall of an object or the passage from one place to another (but then without seasons why should you move?)<br/><br/>Without tomorrows, and seasons and stars at night, we would never have developed our calendars and our clocks and our perception of time itself - even though we still don't understand exactly what it is...<br/><br/>Perhaps we 'fools' strut upon our stage because we have an understanding of the existence of time and indeed of space itself.<br/><br/>Enjoy today and look forward to tomorrow.<br/><br/><a href='http://www.nist.gov/pml/general/time/index.cfm' target='_blank'>A Walk Through Time</a><i><br/></i></cite><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img class='zemanta-pixie-img' alt='' src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=5e551821-d6dd-8100-96cd-f65b4dfbff86'/></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-18762834291910001942009-09-13T10:07:00.000-07:002009-09-13T10:14:21.250-07:00Destroying the Conservation of Momentum.<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>A thought experiment.<br/><br/>Take a sealed system, a container.<br/><br/>Inside the container, against one wall, eject an electron. It will have momentum mv and will have imparted an equal and opposite momentum into the wall of the container. Left to its own devices, the electron will fly across the container and impact the opposite wall, when the two momenta will cancel one another out. If we had been able to look carefully enough, we would have seen the container jiffle slightly as it momentarily held the created momenta component.<br/><br/>But what if... part way across the container, the electron met a wanton positron and together they fused in the perfect dance of energy creation. Energy does not have momentum, so where did the electrons momentum go ??<br/><br/>More to the point, the container is now left with unresolved momentum and will continue to move under its influence until some external force steps in and stops it.<br/><br/>Action begat reaction, but action got itself totalled leaving only reaction.<br/><br/>Keep this up and the container will start to wiz along without any interaction on the outside world - reaction without action (granted, the formation of all that energy within the container is going to make it one smokin hot pot), but it is a pot that is breaking the law of conservation of Momentum - or is it ??<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=853c1140-cc76-8fac-b981-e672b55a1217' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184232577226338930.post-46737175230028447802009-09-13T09:46:00.000-07:002009-09-15T11:39:02.128-07:00e in different bases -- 2.B 7E 15 16 28...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>If aliens sent us the constant e, would we recognise it?<br/><br/>The constant e in decimal to 20 places is <span style='white-space: nowrap;'>2.71828 18284 59045 23536... sure, you spot that one without any trouble.<br/><br/>But what about --<br/><br/>In binary it is 10.101101111110000101010001011000101000101011101101001...<br/><br/>In ternary it is 2.20110112122110201101222210201102...<br/><br/>and in hex it is 2.B7E151628AED2...<br/><br/>Would you have spotted any of those ?<br/><br/>courtesy of <a href='http://www.easysurf.cc/cnver17.htm#b10tob2'>http://www.easysurf.cc/cnver17.htm#b10tob2</a><br/></span><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=57281a40-06c7-854e-a2aa-8b355fcb2538' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>FoolOnTheHillnoreply@blogger.com0